CMLL Universal tournament field set (probably), AAA accident, Toxin injury update

Today is the final day to vote for the Tapatia awards. You have until midnight to vote. It won’t take long.

CMLL posted a photo of all their champions in the CMLL Universal tournament. Of course, being a Mexican wrestling photo, they had 15 people for the 16th man tournament. Dragon Lee, Euforia and Electrico are missing, Dragon Lee is in Block A this week, which means Euforia & Electrico are not participating. There will be no reason given, but I think my theory of not using both Soberano family members was correct, I just had the wrong one out.

That means Block B is Mephisto, Cuatrero, Ultimo Guerrero, Volador Jr., Sanson, Soberano Jr., Diamante Azul, and Niebla Roja. It looks like another Ultimo Guerrero/Volador match, with Diamante Azul being the most likely third choice.

(Dragon Lee, Euforia and Electrico were just the men with main titles who were missing. It was good to see the “wow, that’s a lot of champions” reaction to the photo and realize there are at least eight more people who are missing from the full set of CMLL belts.)

Lost in Lucha has a preview of the Universal tournament.

Atlantis says he’s happy with how his son did in Japan. He feels there are three big goals for a Mexican wrestler: wrestle in Arena Mexico, wrestle in Japan and win a title, and his son will have two of those done by the end of the week. He notes the title will take a few years to get towards. Atlantis does not have any plans to retire for the moment, feeling renewed teaming with his son. Atlantis Jr. says he’s nervous going into his first Arena Mexico match.

CMLL’s Diosas del Ring edecans have a new Twitter account and say they’ll be streaming tryouts for their 2019 tryouts today and tomorrow morning.

Hades of AAA is also out with a leg injury. The La Planchitas column mentions she, Goya Kong and Parka Negra were among those riding in a van on their way back from Aguascalientes when that van was hit by a drunk driver. Hades is said to have taken the worst of it, with one of her legs behind trapped under a seat and requiring an operation immediately. Both Hades and Goya Kong have vaguely referred to this on Instagram. There’s so match late night travel involved with Mexican wrestling, especially for the AAA side, on roads that aren’t always in great shape. It’s unfortunate when accidents happen and it is lucky they don’t happen more often.

AAA and their local promoters in Morelia held a ticket sale kick-off press conference yesterday for the 02/16 taping. Drago & Myzteziz Jr. were interviewed. It appeared they were still advertising Jeff Jarrett for the show, though it’s only really meaningful if they stop mentioning him. Jarrett going to WWE and what it means for AAA was very briefly brought up on Konnan’s podcast, but Konnan didn’t talk about it and they very quickly moved onto what it means for WWE.

I forgot to screen-shot a tweet and I’m regretting it right now. A random twitter user posted a photo of a Rey de Reyes announce date, asking AAA if it was real. The user has since deleted the tweet. I believe the date was 03/17, might have been 03/24 but it was definitely 2019. The graphic did not have a name of a city but did have a name of a ticket website, which is based in Puebla and has sold tickets for Tehuacán shows in the past, but it does not have Rey de Reyes listed. I couldn’t find anything that confirmed that date for either city. AAA did run Puebla for Rey de Reyes last year so it is reasonable possibly but not confirmed.

MexaWrestling will be holding a Toxin benefit show on 02/10. Toxin originally believed he had an injury that would cause him to leave wrestling, then thought it was something less serious (out 1-2 months) and now has found out it’s worse than that and is getting an operation imminently. MexaWrestling posted the x-ray and I’m not good at reading x-rays, but it appears to be a lower leg or an ankle fracture.

Super X & MDA held a press conference for their 02/17 show. This comes off like it’s a Super X (Juventud Guerrera) programmed show with just enough help from MDA to get their name on the poster. The main event was revealed to be Fuerza Guerrera & Rush versus Juventud Guerrera & Hijo del Pirata Morgan. Pirata & Eterno, who were part of Guerrera’s AAA “Anarkia” group, are now part of Guerrera’s non-AAA MAD group. (Given AAA’s strong feelings on controlling their intellectual property, Guerrera’s group might not be MAD for long, though it’s not especially clear who owns the name. Or who even cares about the name at this point.) Fuerza Guerrera “invaded” the press conference with his daughter to build up the main event. The El Planchitas column on Monday wrote that the long term plan here is for Fuerza & Juventud to settle their issue and end up teaming again.

Pro Wrestling Revolution announced a Carsitico vs Dragon Lee vs Rey Horus match for 02/23 in San Jose. It’s Dragon Lee’s first match in the promotion since winning the King of the Indies tournament they co-sponsored. I’m sure they had bigger plans for follow up that didn’t happen when Dragon Lee was off on Exatlon (which is still going for at least another week.) It also suggests Dragon Lee has not signed with ROH yet, as assumed to be happening or at least agreed to this date well in advance of any deal.

Arena Aficion has their 67th Anniversary show tonight. The Pachuca, Hidalgo building was opened on January 31, 1952. Today’s show is an AAA event with Psycho Clown, Dr. Wagner Jr., La Parka and Pagano in a four-way for a trophy. Locals Persy & Militar de la Muerte have a mask match. Criterio Hidalgo has an interview with the ring announcer.

Arena Naucalpan also has a show tonight. It’s a little bit treated like an IWRG show, though it is really more of a Castelazzi promotions show. The Montanez MMA brothers work few other shows except for that promotion. Francois puts his mask on the line against Dr. Cerebro hair, and Cerebro is unlikely to lose his hair. The show has a brothers tag match – Guerreros vs the Luna Brothers of Electrshock & Sharly Rockstar and a father/son tag match – Solars & Panthers.

+LuchaTV put up the 01/20 Angel o Demonio versus Penta trios match. There are so many shows they taped, I wish they would’ve picked pretty much anything else. Though that’s because I feel like re-enacting that spot where someone was seriously injured is a bad thing and most people in Mexico seem like it is a cool thing to heat up feuds. You can see that bleachers in Arena Loepz Mateos seem lower than usual for a Penta appearance, but often I don’t think these are decisions made for business reasons either.

Retro Wrasslin’ has a recap of the Contrapunto episode most famous for El Santo briefly unmasking.

Lucha Talk has this week’s episode.

Lineup

IWRG (SUN) 02/03/2019 Arena Naucalpan
1) Ángel Estrella Jr. vs Puma de Oro
2) Kamisake & Latino vs Güero Palma & Neza Kid
3) Atómico Star, Divino, Manchitas vs Apollo Estrada Jr., Hip Hop Man, Mosca
4) Liderk, Rayan, Spector © vs Demonio Infernal, Eterno, Lunatic Xtreme [EdM Trios]
first defense (won back in December 2017)
5) Black Dragón & Séptimo Rayo vs Dragón Bane & Hijo de Canis Lupus
6) Hijo del Pantera, Imposible, Internacional Pantera vs Mr. Águila, Sinn Bodhi, Utamaro
7) Oficial 911 & Oficial AK47 © vs Capo del Norte & Capo del Sur [IWRG IC TAG]
2nd defense

Back to “normal” on Sunday for IWRG. Trios titles look certain to change hands with how rarely all three Comando Elite are in IWRG. (One missing the title match wouldn’t be a change.) Less sure about the main event.